Bosses

Karazhan is huge, scripted, and non-winged, containing twelve boss encounters, with 22 different NPCs. To get inside the instance, you need to get past the door right after the instance gate. In order to open this door, at least one person in the raid must have The Master’s Key which is obtained through an attunement process. The door is also able to be lock picked by rogues.

Getting attuned

Even though now it’s not necessary for you to get attuned to be able to enter Karazhan (this attunement was required for all raid members a while back), I strongly recommend you to do it because you will get a lot of Keepers of Time reputation in the process which will save you many BM runs for getting Revered. Getting attuned requires you to complete these steps:

1. Complete the quests Restless Activity and Arcane Disturbances given by Archmage Alturus outside Karazhan.
2. You must then visit Dalaran and talk to Archmage Cedric who will send you to Khadgar in Shattrath City.
3. Khadgar will give you a quest to retrieve the First Key Fragment from a Arcane Container in Shadow Labyrinth. It is located in the room of the last boss Murmur.
4. Next you need to retrieve two more key fragments from The Steamvault and The Arcatraz. The Steamvaults fragment is found just before the first boss in the water. The Arcatraz fragment is found in the corner of the blue room after the first boss.
5. Khadgar will now ask you to visit Medivh in The Black Morass and give him the key. You will need to complete the encounter before Medivh will talk to you.
6. Return to Khadgar in Shattrath and he will give you The Master’s Key.

As I was saying earlier, Karazhan is the home of 12 bosses (yes, twelve, yielding 22 Badges if you do a full clear). Five of them are required (Moroes, Opera Event — one of three random encounters: Wizard of Oz, Big Bad Wolf or Romulo and Julianne, The Curator, Chess Event and Prince Malchezaar), seven optional (Attumen the Huntsman & Midnight, Maiden of Virtue, Shade of Aran, Terestian Illhoof, Netherspite, Nightbane and 1 random animal boss which nobody does because he drops crap loot).

Layout

Karazhan is not very friendly to new comers. First of all, it’s very big and has at least 2 ways to get to a point. This makes it hard for new players to get around. Hell, I even know a few people that despite doing it many times before they still get lost.

Back to the layout. The best method I found to get around is to take each boss and learn the ways to get to him. Study the maps, read guides and when you first go and face the situation, it will be much easier.

Don’t get discouraged if it all seems overwhelming at first. Be patient, things will fall into place after some time. Wowwiki is a great place to read about Karazhan, so if you have the patience, please do so.

Shortcuts

• Killing the Shade of Aran makes a teleport to his room available from Berthold the Doorman.
• Karazhan has a side entrance. When climbing the tower to the right of the main entrance (across the small creek), the stairs lead to a bridge and to a door which unlocks after the Opera Event has been cleared. Some trash can be bypassed by using the side entrance right after the Opera Event.

Vendors and Repairs

• Koren <The Blacksmith>, next to Attumen the Huntsman, will repair gear for players who are Honored with Violet Eye. He also sells some epic Blacksmithing recipes (frost resistance gear). Near him is Calliard who wanders around, babbling how evil Midnight and her owner are.
• Outside of the Gamesman’s Hall (before the Chess Event) is Ythyar, a reagent and The Consortium rep reward vendor, who can repair gear (however it is worthy to note that Ythyar has no faction attached to him, so no rep discounts are available — whether this is a bug or intentional is unclear).

Lore

Nobody knows lore like wowwiki so here’s a quote straight from there:

Karazhan is located in Deadwind Pass on the sub-continent of Azeroth in the Eastern Kingdoms. Existing long before Medivh inhabited it, it is unknown who originally built Karazhan or who now resides within its walls. The land it sits on “was similar in shape to a human skull. Many had noted it over the years, though only a few had been sufficiently brave, or powerful, or tactless to mention it to the property’s owner”.^{LG 2}

Karazhan’s history begins with an explosion that carved out Deadwind Pass and weakened the fabric of reality in the region.^{LG 89} Someone then built the tower, probably to take advantage of this weakened reality and heightened magic. Medivh eventually took up residence there, but mused that the explosion and the construction only happened because he would eventually arrive.^{LG 91, 92}

During the First War, the tower was inhabited by Medivh, his steward Moroes, his cook Cook, and his then-apprentice Khadgar. Garona also resided here as an emissary in the same time of Khadgar’s apprenticeship. Sargeras allowed Medivh to freely explore Karazhan. As a result of the region’s weakened reality, many strange and disturbing visions lurked within the tower, and Moroes was known for wearing blinders to avoid seeing them. The visions were ultimately ended when most of Karazhan’s ambient magical power was absorbed by the resurrected Medivh, reducing it to “a pile of stone in the remote reaches”, its power taken to serve the Prophet.^{LG 306-308}

Much of the story from this era is presented in the novel The Last Guardian.

Recently, despite Medivh’s absence and the draining of magic, a new power seems to have made its home in Karazhan. The Black Riders of Deadwind Pass, though rarely seen, have a connection to Karazhan. However, no one knows who their master is. One recent sighting is cause for concern — the Black Riders seek the Scythe of Elune, a powerful artifact with the ability to summon the vile Worgen into this world.

It is believed that all ley lines on Azeroth lead to a location under Karazhan.

Worldofwarcraft.com says the following about Karazhan:

The decrepit tower of Karazhan once housed one of the greatest powers Azeroth has ever known: the sorcerer Medivh. Since his death, a terrible curse has pervaded the tower and the surrounding lands. The spirits of nobles from nearby Darkshire reportedly walk its halls, suffering a fate worse than death for their curiosity. More dangerous spirits wait within Medivh’s study, for it was there that he summoned demonic entities to do his bidding. However, the brave and foolish are still relentlessly drawn to Karazhan, tempted by rumors of unspeakable secrets and powerful treasures. Forge a group of ten stalwart heroes, and journey to the tower in Deadwind Pass — but be warned that only those who have achieved level 70 should dare enter.

This concludes today’s part of the Complete idiot’s guide to Karazhan for Protection Paladins. Stay tuned for the next part, when we cover the spoils of war, aka the sweet loot.

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Protection Paladin guide to Karazhan: knowing the instance

• The Complete idiot’s guide to Karazhan for Protection Paladins
• Protection Paladin guide to Karazhan: a few words of introduction
• Mini guide to tanking Nightbane for Protection Paladins
• Protection Paladin soloing Stratholme Undead side - live blogging
• Bored of PvE. Or am I?

What will I find here?

Short answer: all you need and want to know about tanking Karazhan on your Tankadin!

Long answer: lore, layouts, boss strategies, videos, personal insights, tips and hands on information on successfully tanking all Karazhan content with minimum effort. And looking good in the process!

The Complete idiot’s guide to Karazhan for Protection Paladins is a multi-part walkthrough.

Part One has a few words of introduction about a Tankadin’s role in the raid, how to act and how to be helpful. Also covers minimum requirements gear-wise before stepping foot in Karazhan.

Part Two does a in depth analysis of the bosses, layout and lore of Karazhan.

Part Three looks at the spoils of war, also known as loot for your Protection Paladin.

(more parts are soon coming your way!)

For all guides regarding Protection Paladins be sure to visit the Guides page and give it a read!

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The Complete idiot’s guide to Karazhan for Protection Paladins

• Protection Paladin guide to Karazhan: a few words of introduction
• Protection Paladin guide to Karazhan: knowing the instance
• Mini guide to tanking Nightbane for Protection Paladins
• Common mistakes in building your Protection Paladin
• Useful professions for a Protection Paladin (I): Blacksmithing

This post was brought to you by itankstuff.com.

So this one time, in Grom’Gol…

• So we went on a little trip
• I’ll be gone till November
• Here we go!
• My evolution as a World of Warcraft player
• Last week’s summary

Please raise your hands all those of you who didn’t read at least once in your gaming experience the endless bullshit that rolls in /2.

No hands up?

Good.

Now, the situation is not peach and roses on [EU]Daggerspine either. Oh no, we sure have our share of bored people here.

I’ve identified 4 types of spam rolling in trade chat:

1. Dirge (and variations) spam;
2. Crafting and recruitment spam;
3. Bored spam;
4. Gold spam;

“WTF, you left gold spamming last?” Yes. Because it’s the far less worst type. In the last two weeks, I didn’t see more than 10 adverts total. Well, yeah, it’s true, I don’t play a lot and when I do I’m usually out of towns or in BGs. But, you know, used to be far worst so I’m glad that stopped.

More spamming fun after the jump. Ni-hao!

Dirge spam – it’s Dirgetastic!

Dirge spam distinguishes its self to be a real plague. I dare say it become a social phenomenon. Nowadays I’m sure that if you try and make an honest buck selling it you would get at least 5 instant reports for spamming.

On other servers, Dirge is replaced by different combinations, such as Pauldrons of Wild Magic, Murloc Movie titles, “2girls1<insert item name>.com”, “the Nicker” and many, many, many, many others. Which is, in fact, a really interesting subject to talk about. How can people on so wide-spread servers have the same behavior? The answer is out there to be found and I’m sure it involves a lot of psychology and human behavior analysis.

But! Let’s move to the next type of spam:

Crafting and recruitment spam

Hehehe, probably one of the best spam there is. The type of people that do this are the “oh, sorry, I lagged and pressed my macro button several times / second just to make sure it works. But just look how many I can craft, and cheap too!” type. You met people like this right? I sure did!

I also saw Guild Recruitments in the wonderful trade channel and I don’t mind. Up to a point of course. Advertising your guild is ok, as long as you don’t repeat the same message over and over again, several times in a single minute, just to make sure you reach each and every one of the players on the servers. /facepalm I know you’re eager about your “newly formed guild with experienced players that plan to raid end-game whisp me for inv” or inpatient to fill your raid positions with new and fresh meat, but before you jump like a fat kind on candy to the trade chat, stop and think for a second on what you are about to do.

Bored spam

Bored spam is a spam that comes out of boredom. Really, it is. People, at a point in their game-play, get bored. That’s a well known fact. Not with the game, but just at a certain hour, certain place, they get bored. And start to socialize with other people. And what better place to chat than the trade chat? “We’re trading knowledge, you ignorant baboon!”. “Yeah, and your mother is fat!”. “no u!”.

And bored people tend to come up with the most crazy ideas ever! Like, imagine this: what if we were to improve the Dirge spam, by starting a sentence with “anal” and then linking a skill? Now wouldn’t that be fun? Yes, of course it would be! Let’s start doing it for several hours without interruption! Oh, and let’s repeat the same thing that some other random guy already said! Yeah, awesomesauce! “anal First Aid”, “anal Sap”, “anal Execute”, “anal Silence”, “anal Rupture” and many many many more have flooded the trade chat. Sometimes I wonder what the GMs are doing, cause these things last for at least 1 hour every damned day.

/gasp

But Tepisor, teach us what to do!

You have two options:

1. Start reporting and ignoring all the people involved in the spam;
2. Get some addons to solve your problems, like Dirge Spam Blocker, Annoying Spam Blocker or SpamMeNot;

Conclusions

Don’t spam. kkthnxbai

This post was brought to you by itankstuff.com.

Trade chat – we all love to hate it

• The concept of Main tank
• Achieving RL / WoW balance - biggest threat to you
• So we went on a little trip
• Protection Paladin guide to Karazhan: a few words of introduction
• My WoW Memories

Yeah, I named him Peps after all!

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I know he loves me, but this is a bit too much

• Name the pet of my alt Hunter
• What’s the longest WSG you ever had?
• My evolution as a World of Warcraft player
• Finnaly raiding again
• Ups, I did it again

Firstly, I fiddled with the site feed. My inner-geek got the best of me and I decided to give Feedburner a go. All the traffic from the old feed should be redirected to the new Feedburner feed. Hopefully it actually works in practice too. This change will give me a better perspective on how many people actually read me regularly as before the only measure I had of that was the Google Webmaster Tools Subscribers statistics (which is a bit off for people not using Google Reader). So, if you we’re subscribed to the old feed and you don’t see new content being posted (like this one), that’s why. Hopefully you’ll come back and subscribe again, but that’s just wishful thinking.

I’ve also added the option to subscribe by email. I know it’s a long shot and I doubt that anyone prefers this method instead of the classic feed. I’m just testing the waters here. And by the way, don’t worry about giving me your email, I also don’t like spam and you won’t receive unwanted messages by subscribing here.

In the tweak frenzy that got over me today I also updated the About me (minor change) and Contact me pages. Took me a while to realize that they had absolutely no relevant info whatsoever. Go check them out now.

Guess that’s it. Hope everything works out great!

This post was brought to you by itankstuff.com.

Minor changes to the site

• Trade chat – we all love to hate it
• Tip: Improve yourself as a blogger
• I’m back!
• Mini guide to tanking Nightbane for Protection Paladins
• We haz a poll

Why? Well, because it’s still in Beta. That means there are going to be a lot of differences between releases.

A week ago (from what I’ve read at least), the new mage talent trees sucked. Now, with the release of Build 8681, things are a lot different.

I can safely say Protection Paladins also suffered some modifications in the Protection talent tree that certainly changed my “future-beta-awesome-all-around” tanking build.

After being on holiday for the last week I’m really behind with the news. And there is so much information to assimilate I just can’t cope with. So, I’ll just be on my normal routine and not blog about it.

(btw, I’m back so 3 /cheers for that)

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I refuse to blog about Wrath of the Lich King

• New official Wrath of the Lich King information released
• How I started tanking
• be.imba.hu - first online character auditor for World of Warcraft
• Readers ask, itankstuff.com answears (II)
• Tip: Improve yourself as a blogger

… but I’ll be back in 10 days. I’m gonna go enjoy some sun!

Stay safe!

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I’ll be gone till November

• I’m back!
• Things I should have blogged about, but didn’t
• Writers block?
• So this one time, in Grom’Gol…
• My evolution as a World of Warcraft player

BBBB		BRK
	VS

BRK wins!*

*this is indeed a pun. I love em’ both equally!

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The FOSHIZZLE! war – my take on it

• Get off my case already!
• Bored of PvE. Or am I?
• I love drama
• PvP dilemma
• How do you PvP?

Teh result:

W00p w00p!

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Is where Tepitep gets nekkid

• Getting that inspiration - how do you do it?
• 2.4 Shopping List
• PvP dilemma
• So we went on a little trip
• Another night in Karazhan…